|
Iran to make new nuke proposals
19/12/2005 17:40 - (SA)
Tehran - Iran will make new proposals during talks on its nuclear programme with Britain, France and Germany this week but will not compromise its demand to conduct sensitive fuel work, an official said on Monday.
"We will make other proposals," Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, a vice-president and head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told Iranian news agencies.
Iran is due to meet with the so-called EU-3 in Vienna on Wednesday. The meeting is aimed at examining the possibility of resuming long-term negotiations, which broke down in August.
"The Iranian delegation will welcome all proposals, on the condition that they recognise the rights of Iran," Aghazadeh said.
Iran insists it only wants to make reactor fuel and generate electricity, and the uranium enrichment process is a "right" to any signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But the process can be extended to make the core of a nuclear weapon, and the European Union and the United States argue that Iran cannot be trusted with such technology.
This core issue is the cause of the current deadlock.
Aghazadeh did not elaborate on the possible new proposals Iran could present, but pointed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's proposal for foreign firms to be involved in enrichment on Iranian soil as a form of guarantee that the fuel cycle will not be diverted to weapons making.
The Europeans have already rejected this idea, and are in turn pressing a proposal from Moscow whereby Iran could only enrich its uranium on Russian soil. Tehran has rejected the idea.
- AFP
|
News
